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Acción USA, the nation's largest microlender, has made its first loan in Southern Arizona and expects to be more active in the region's growing Hispanic market.

It's a potential that President and CEO Bill Burrus has seen up close — directing the company's microlending business in Latin America before moving to Tucson a dozen years ago.

Like other microlenders, Acción USA makes small-business loans of between $500 and $25,000, with first-time loans typically about $5,000. Microlending has garnered international attention this month after Bangladeshi economist and microlending pioneer Muhammad Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Burrus said the initial connection Acción made with Arizona was through St. Philip's in the Hills Episcopal Church. The church outreach committee contacted Burrus to see how Acción could get involved in Arizona and plugged the company into the state's Small Business Development Center Network.

Three weeks ago, the nonprofit Acción USA loaned a Sierra Vista roofing contractor $4,000 and made a second Arizona loan, of $5,000, to a Kingman truck driver a week later.

"The reason we're able to service Arizona now is we have the ability to reach people on the Internet," said Burrus, who travels frequently to the company's headquarters in Boston but prefers to live in Arizona.

Customers complete the loan application online and either the funds are disbursed electronically or the loan documents are sent electronically to a local notary.

"We feel that Arizona is a great market for us, and we expect to expand there a lot," Burrus said. "We are particularly interested in reaching the Hispanic population."

Acción loans have aided all types of small businesses but typically go to neighborhood-based businesses like corner grocery stores, beauty salons, craftspeople and home-based day-care centers.

"You name it and we're probably financing it," Burrus said. "One of the common themes is these are all folks who for a variety of reasons can't go to a bank for their loan."

Clients are typically minorities, and many are immigrants who don't speak English well or understand the system. Others have had credit problemsin the past or have a low credit score resulting from a divorce or illness. Others don't have the type of records banks require.

"The banks are quite supportive of our work in general, because they see us as the farm club and they're the big leagues," Burrus said. "Banks will often refer customers to us (whom) they can't help themselves."

Born in New Mexico, Burrus moved to Arizona when he was 5 and grew up in Sedona. He has a sociology degree from Arizona State University and a master's degree in international management from Thunderbird Graduate School of International Management in Glendale.

Burrus lived in several Latin American countries before returning to Arizona 12 years ago and settling in Tucson.

He started with Acción 30 years ago and served as executive director of Acción International for 15 years before leading the company's expansion into the United States.

Acción USA started with a pilot program in New York and has expanded to eight offices in Boston, New York, Atlanta, Miami, Chicago, San Antonio, Albuquerque and San Diego. The company has loaned out more than $170 million in 15 years of operating in the United States.

Microlenders have enjoyed the publicity their industry has received since Yunus received the Nobel.

"We're really thrilled about that because it provides more exposure to all of us who are in the business," Burrus said.

Other Southern Arizona microlenders agree. Frank Ballesteros, executive director of PPEP Microbusiness and Housing Development Corporation Inc., called Yunus his mentor.

"I've learned everything on microdevelopment from Muhammad," he said. "It's a well-deserved prize, and he's going to be elevating all these wonderful programs that have been banking the unbankable."

PPEP has been giving microloans in Southern Arizona for 20 years, focusing primarily on rural areas, but is branching out in Tucson with the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

Ballesteros welcomes Acción USA's move into Arizona but said the Internet is just one way to reach clients.

"We still believe we have to kick the tires and go out there and provide the technical assistance," he said. "It's the old-fashioned way of doing it, and as long as we continue to get assistance from the Small Business Administration we are able to provide the hands-on, which is a critical part of the strategy."

SBA microloans in Arizona totaled 124 loans for $887,800 in the federal fiscal year that ended in September.

Bill Holliday, a Tucsonan who works as coordinator for Nogales, Sonora-based microlender BanComún, said the more access to small loans, the better for the region's poor.

"If there's more competition it'll drive the interest rates down and people will be able to get money at a reasonable rate," he said. "The alternatives now are very few. If we can reach more people and there are other organizations that can reach more people, that's fabulous."